By Lady Saoirse
Bright Blessings,
A school is being sued. A child could not come out trans to their parents, but they felt safe coming out at school. When the parents found this out at, this lead to the child attempting suicide, so the parents are suing the school accusing the school of forcing their child to identify as trans. The minute I found out about this I got on the telephone and called the school. I thanked them for being a safe place for kids. They really appreciated hearing from somebody that supported that. I gave them my contact information as a Priestess and I told them to let me know if they needed anything at all. I just might hear back from them. Know why? Allies need help in making a safe place for our kids.
When I grew up there was no safe place for non-heterosexual non cisgender children. Not at home. Not at school. Certainly not in churches. At least for me there wasn’t. I can’t ever remember a time in my childhood that I was not being groomed to be a heterosexual baby mama. When I was in first grade, the teachers would have us girls walk down the hallway holding hands with a boy. Girls had to sit next to a boy. If we were friends with a boy, they told us he was our “boyfriend.” We were encouraged to play with “girl toys” like baby dolls, kitchen sets, strollers, and imitation vacuum cleaners.
It wasn’t any different for the boys. They were strictly forbidden from wearing or even being around anything pink. If they fell and hurt themselves, they were told not to cry because that’s what girls did. If they wanted to play with the dolls they were screamed at or hit by the adults. However, “action figures” were OK. They had to lift and carry things for the girls, open doors for us, and act like they were rescuing us. They weren’t supposed to be creative or sensitive. They had to be forceful, athletic, and mean. They were praised if they hit a girl, and the girl was told “ Ohh he just likes you that’s why he acts that way.”
At home for me, a lot of conversations started with ” When you get married and have babies…” and a lot of other conversations centered around what my wedding day would be like. They asked the boys what they wanted to be when they grew up, but the girls from first grade and up were being trained to be wives and mothers. If a girl liked sports, she was called a tomboy and told to behave more feminine. If a boy liked decorating and cooking, he was told to man up.
A welcome surprise came when I was a teenager and some of the most popular fashion icons, rock stars, and movie stars were not heterosexual. The adults were enraged. Unfortunately for them, some of us non heterosexual kids paid attention. We recognized a part of ourselves when we saw these people and they became role models and icons for us. I never came out at home, and I didn’t have the marriage or parenthood that was expected of me. I was over the age of 30 when I accepted that I am not heterosexual. I was also at that age when I started to discard some of the expectations that I do things like “ sit like a lady,” “be nice” when people were treating me badly, or “do as you’re told.”
School at home were not the only places where we got that treatment. We got it at church too. Walking away from the Christian denomination that I was raised in was one of the best decisions that I ever made. I found a spiritual home with goddess worshipping queer embracing tree hugging Pagans. Doreen Valiente was right. All acts of love and passion really ARE the rituals of the goddess. Pagans understand that. Paganism is a safe place for LGBTQIA+ people. Thankfully, some schools are too.
No child should ever be expected to have the sexual desires that an adult wants them to have. No child should ever be expected to have the gender identity that an adult prefers them to have. No child should ever have to think about whether they will create more children for the adults. Childhood should be a time when you get to grow, develop, explore the world, and discover who you are. Gender identity and sexuality is only a part of that, and adults should not coerce children about these things.
May the gods bless the schools that protect our kids. We all know not all of them are protected at home.
Blessed Be
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Lady Saoirse has studied magic and lore for most of her life but started walking her own magical path after being spiritually reborn in the desert. Today she is a High Priestess for The Temple of the Goddess, she is a psychic advisor and spiritual counselor, she is a member of the spiritual family at the Magical Druid in Ohio, and she shares her gifts as a Psychic and Content Writer for Spiritual Blossom. She has written for Mysticsense and PaganPages.Org emag.